Greece intercepts mystery ship with 20,000 Kalashnikovs onboard

The Greek Coastguard has intercepted a Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship with around 20,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles on board. The intended destination of the vessel, halted near the Imia islets in the eastern Aegean, remains unknown.

The cargo ship Nour M, intercepted on Thursday night, was taken
to the island of Symi the following morning under the escort of
Coastguard vessels, where it was soon thereafter led to the
island of Rhodes.

The vessel’s Turkish captain and seven crew members, two of whom
were Turkish and five of whom were Indian, were placed under
arrest, coastguard sources told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency
(ANA-MPA).

The cargo was both larger than that declared on the ship’s
manifest, and the ship did not have the proper UN documents to
deliver cargo to a conflict zone. The Greek Coastguard issued a
statement saying attempts to catalogue the firearms and munitions
onboard were ongoing.

“The exact destination of the arms and ammunition has yet to
be verified," the coastguard statement read. Apart from the
large quantity of firearms, the ship was also allegedly carrying
a “large” quantity of explosives. A probe determined the
ship had previously been used for drug trafficking.

Sources told ANA-MPA that the vessel had set sail from Ukraine,
although the ship’s final destination remains unclear. Although
the ports of Tartus in Syria and Tripoli in Libya had both been
declared as destination ports to marine traffic systems, the
Turkish Mediterranean port city of Iskenderun was declared as the
destination port by the ship's captain.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said they are attempting to determine
if the Nour departed from the country.

“I think it was there for no other purpose than to get the
weapons. It is also strange that it took the ship two weeks to
get from Nikolaev [Ukraine] to Greece when the trip takes a
maximum of five days. What it was doing and where it was doing it
at the time: that is the question.”

Voitenko said the vessel was likely detained as the result of a
tip-off.

“That we have this ship sailing through the Black Sea is
strange, but through Greek ‘territorial waters] it went in a
straight line, so police had no reason to detain the ship,”
he said.